I wonder if George Lucas has one of those Paint the Earth signs hanging on the walls of his mansions like in The Real World 3 (or was it 2?). USA Today has scored a somewhat muddy first look at what Anakin Skywalker aka Young Darth will look like in the upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the new 3-D computer-animated flick officially set to open in theaters domestically on August 15th, thus kicking off the new, same-named computer-animated television series that will air on Cartoon Network (a la the rather awesome, hand drawn Clone Wars animated miniseries) and on TNT. Hi synergy, my name is Hunter, you are making me tired.

In a surprising detail, Lucasfilm has teamed up with Warner Bros. to release Star Wars: The Clone Wars theatrically, on television and on DVD. This marks the first time 20th Century Fox won’t be handling a theatrical Star Wars release. The film’s events are said to take place between Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. That’s funny, it takes place right around when I decided the ’99-’05 trilogy was a travesty.

The character to the left of Anakin is Ahsoka, his Jedi apprentice, who oddly didn’t appear in character or dialogue in the prior films and looks like the creation of a 50-cent avatar machine.